Collection news

Otto Dix, The Pregnant Woman, 1931, egg tempera and oil on linen, mounted onto plywood, Stoddard Acquisition Fund, 2016.11. © 2022 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn.

Arts of the Ancient Americas gets a refresh Last fall, our Arts of the Ancient Americas Gallery received a welcome refresh, with updated maps and labels reflecting current art historical research. The renewed gallery, guest curated by Louise Deglin, doctoral candidate in the Department of Art History at UCLA, explores the richness of art from ancient Mesoamerica to the Central Andes, and spans more than 3,500 years from the Olmec culture to the contact-era Aztec and Inca Empires. The collection was a natural link to a community ofrenda (traditional offering of gifts to spirits of deceased loved ones) installed adjacent to the gallery as part of a city-wide initiative to celebrate Día de los Muertos. This multi-day festival originated with indigenous traditions of ancient Mesoamerica and is today considered one of the most tangible representations of living heritage in Mexico and around the world.

New addition to the Medieval Galleries Newly installed in the Medieval Galleries is a magnificent Viking Age sword, dated to the late 800s. The acquisition of this sword fulfills a decades-long goal for the Higgins Armory Collection, offering visitors a museum-quality example of a weapon that was the classic sidearm of these feared and adventuresome warriors. About 36 inches long, but weighing in at a nimble one and a half pounds, this object is a testament to the evolving metalworking skills that allowed medieval smiths to forge long yet light blade weapons that were beyond the technology of the Classical world. Its richly silvered hilt reminds us that in addition to being a tool for battle, the sword was also a status symbol and article of personal adornment. The Pregnant Woman comes home Traumatized by his experiences serving in WWI, Otto Dix (1891 –1969) used art to present cynical social criticism, applying a hyperrealistic aesthetic to the documentation of post-war turmoil in German society. Dix developed an individual approach to New Objectivity, a movement that expressed the degeneration of Weimar Germany through a detached, seemingly documentary style. He also became preoccupied with diverse experiences of modern womanhood, including independent women, prostitutes, war widows, and working mothers. The subject of pregnancy and birth interested him throughout his career. In The Pregnant Woman (1931) he presented an unflinching depiction of the female body in late pregnancy, a radical approach that rejects a traditional idealization of the female nude for a male audience. The painting, which inspired WAM’s bold and acclaimed 2019 exhibition, With Child: Otto Dix/Carmen Winant, has been on loan to the Louisiana Museum of Art near Copenhagen, Denmark and the Kunsthalle Mannheim in Germany. It returns to the European galleries in spring 2022.

Back from Paris— A Miracle of Saint Donatus of Arezzo This small but exquisite 15th-century altar painting was the subject of a 2018 special exhibition, The Mystery of Worcester’s Leonardo. The intimate presentation made the argument that the work was an early collaboration between Leonardo da Vinci and Lorenzo di Credi, fellow pupils in Andrea del Verrocchio’s Florentine studio. When WAM acquired the painting in 1940, it had already been published as an early work by Leonardo. Some 30 years later, it was reattributed to Lorenzo di Credi, who was six years younger than Leonardo. A years-long collaboration among colleagues at Yale University, the Louvre, and WAM reopened the question of authorship. That research led ultimately to the untangling of painting styles of these two different artists, who worked side-by-side in Verrocchio’s workshop—and a new dual attribution. After the WAM show ended, A Miracle of Saint Donatus of Arezzo, one of only a handful of works attributed to Leonardo in the United States, traveled to related exhibitions at Yale University and in Florence, Italy. The painting ended its international tour in Paris in the Louvre’s retrospective on Leonardo da Vinci (October 24, 2019 – February 24, 2020), marking the 500th anniversary of the artist’s death. The work is now on permanent view in the European Galleries.

Northern European, Viking Age Sword with Silvered Hilt, late 800s, steel (heavily oxidized) with silver, Museum purchase through the Higgins Collection Acquisitions Fund and Theodore T. and Mary G. Ellis Fund, 2021.22 Attributed to Leonardo da Vinci (Italian, 1452–1519) and Lorenzo di Credi (Florentine, about 1456–1536), A Miracle of Saint Donatus of Arezzo, 1475–1479, oil on panel, Theodore T. and Mary G. Ellis Collection, 1940.29